Profile from an urban explorer in a rural location.

I am Laura Brown, unapologetically Canadian.

I admire old things, places, and items. Old, ruined places give me a feeling of awe. I like weathering, wear and tear, and obsolete or derelict thigs. I like the details of workmanship in architecture and functional things like doorknobs, keys, and windows. They are mysterious, and a bit sad.

I believe in "leave only footsteps and take only photographs" but, I admit I have dug up and saved a few plants from abandoned gardens. Living, growing things should not be relics left to die, strangled by (so-called) weeds.

I have been a location scout for filmmakers in Ontario on 3 occasions. However, I am reluctant to give location information to people asking for help finding places to photograph. So, just don't ask. You can find locations yourself, start by exploring your own backyard.

I am the founder of Ontario Rural Ruins on Flickr. The group began in 2007 and continues still. I founded, run and help moderate other groups for urban explorers and people who like history and a bit of the paranormal. (I have never had a paranormal experience at any old place I've photographed).

My photography is inspired by the haunting mystery of the road not taken. I know that sounds corny, but I can't find a better way to describe it. Whatever happened to..., what if... why was that left there, like that?... these are questions always in my mind. If something is worn and old I want to see it. I especially like rural ruins and century-old city buildings.

My photographs are not free to take, use or borrow. I am not currently selling them.

Tag: bus

Next time you see a shopping cart in the wild, will you document it? I have taken a couple of photos but I don’t think I ever posted them. Shopping carts are a very urban/ suburban thing. Something overlooked and yet they turn up in so many places. I’ve never taken one home myself. Once, I did bring a cart all the way to the end of the parking lot where I caught the bus. Just once… maybe twice. But, I had a lot of groceries that day – they were heavy and I didn’t want to miss the bus.

Most bus stops in North America are fairly standard issue from the bus company. There isn’t a lot of variety and bus stop shelters don’t tend to stay up once the bus route changes. Sadly, they tend to be vandalized too often as well. But, Christopher Herwig found unique bus stop shelters, enough to make a book about them: Soviet Bus Stops.

It may not be an official name, but street furniture is a good name for all the items and objects which make up a city street. Do you notice the:

street signs

street lights

traffic barriers

traffic lights

mail boxes

hand rails

bus stops

phone booths

cigarette receptacles

fire hydrants

garbage cans

benches

bicycle racks

parking meters

sidewalks

and so many other small, old and taken for granted parts of the city streets? What can you find in your own area which has been around awhile and gone unnoticed?

The first telephone boxes, a porter’s rest from 1861 or a street lamp powered by sewage – just a few of the things we can walk past every day in London without often noticing them. Have you ever noticed the smallest Listed structures in London, the K2 phone boxes?

It’s interesting how much you can and can not see using Google Street View. This is the White Towers Motel. I can’t say that it was the White Tower’s Motel because it is still standing, so far. There is some kind of plan in action for it. Likely it was sold to new owners as the name has been changed. Now it is the Barrie Motel Hotel (or something like that). There is one of the old white signs still up but the rest have been changed.

One whold section of the motel is all boarded up and will likely be demolished. It wasn’t a fancy place and now it really looks ratty. Too bad to see another of the old motels downslide and likely disappear at some point.

My plan is to get there for some photos of my own. But, I did like the step back in time to see it in 2012 when Google got these photos. One odd thing, the side of the building which is now boarded up is different now. In this view the building has a new surface but when I went by on the bus today it was the old stuff. Likely a board (which was painted fresh) has fallen off. Anyway, will get the photos of the motel as it is now, soon.

The Dutch are bicycle fanatics. Almost half of daily travel in the Netherlands is by bicycle, while the country’s bike fleet comfortably outnumbers its 16 million people. Devotees of the national obsession have taken the next logical step by launching what is likely the first bicycle school bus.

Built by Tolkamp Metaalspecials, and sold by the De Cafe Racer company, the bicycle school bus (BCO in Dutch) is powered entirely by children and the one adult driver (although there is an electric motor for tough hills). Its simple design has eight sets of pedals for the kids (ages 4 to 12), a driver seat for the adult, and three bench seats for freeloaders. The top speed is about 10 miles per hour, and features a sound system and canvas awning to ward off rainy days.

What a great way to get the kids exercising and active first thing in the day. They can burn off some energy so they will be more likely to sit and listen in class too.

A friend on Facebook posted a link to a site which wants people to boycott plastic bags. This is a US thing cause here in Canada it is already in effect.

Across Canada (as far as I know) almost every retailer makes you pay for plastic bags now. WalMart seems to be the only one holding out, giving bags free when you shop there.

It started with the grocery stores. It is the government’s way to get people using the cloth/ green bags instead. It’s also causing people to buy less. People don’t want to pay for bags so they buy what they can carry out in their hands, if they didn’t bring their own bags. I take the bus so I don’t have a car to store bags in. So I’m buying less and end up making more trips.

I expect it will also cause more shoplifting. People just bring their own bags and put stuff into them. Cashiers are not allowed to ask people to empty the bags they bring with them. I know this from my experience as a cashier in a department store.

I really think the plastic water bottle thing causes a lot more plastic waste which would be easier to fix by using green bottles.

There was talk of not using take out cups for coffee any longer. Everyone would have to bring their own. So someone like me would have to carry around a backpack instead of a purse so I could haul around my own bags, my own coffee cup.

The other issue they have been finding with bring your own bags (and would also be relevant to bring your own cups) is bacteria and pure grossness. People are not washing the bags. They use them for more than just groceries, store them in less than clean/ sterile ways. Cashiers have had to refuse to use some bags cause they could not stand the smell of them. At the coffee shops they shoot a spray of hot water into the cups but I doubt that really cleans them enough between coffees.

Found an abandoned building on KoL last night. I’m getting just that good at tracking them down. 🙂

My four days off are over. Have to get back to the work week today. Wish I could have found the web development/ design books I was looking for. Would have been a great time to fix up my site. It is pretty half-baked at the moment.

Of course, having four days off I am going into work tired, again. You would think I would have slept in each day and feel great now. But no. I kept getting early morning phone calls from the mystery company who must only talk to my Mother. She is down in Florida. If they cant’ tell me what it is about I just can’t see myself giving them her phone number down there. Especially when I have told them I work nights and they keep waking me up when they phone. Jerks.

I used this time of having most of the snow being rained away to put out food in the bird feeder in the back yard. Will see if the squirrels can get into it or not now. Looks like they didn’t before, but that was when there was no temptation.

Thinking about getting into work early, or at least having time to poke around and go to Mcdonalds for a coffee (its close to work). That would mean I’d have to actually get dressed now and catch the bus in a few minutes. So I should actually not still be sitting here.

I hoped to get a better shot but the bus goes fast and I was lucky to get it twice. No time to zoom in. This house is at the fringe of a new development. The basement is all dug around for some reason. It looked like a tooth having root canal or something else very out of it’s place.

My camera had trouble. It kept shutting down on it’s own. So I didn’t get more pictures than these. I was thinking to go down to Lake Ontario. I could see it from where I caught the Woodbine bus. The waves were throwing themselves ashore. It looked really dramatic and COLD! Another day I will try it. Makes me wish I had the car though. I could park close and run back into the warm car instead of walking back to wait for the bus.

This is a short walk from where I live. I walked down to the bus, realized it wasn’t coming till about 9:00 cause it was Sunday. So I walked into the cemetery for a bit. My camera was not happy about the cold weather I think. I had to shut it off and restart a couple of times.